Lunarium Blog

The day of power outages

2011-09-09T09:34:00.001+01:00

My train to London came 10 minutes late because some brief power outages. The first piece of news that I saw after coming to the office is this:

Authorities were investigating a rush-hour power blackout in parts of Southern California, Arizona and Mexico on Thursday that left more than 1 million customers without power and caused widespread traffic jams.

The day of power outages across the globe? I will check the transits when I have time.

Working hard...

2011-08-21T01:51:00.003+01:00

Sorry, I am keeping silent for two long, so wanted to give you a heads up. I am working on a completely new version of the Five Signs app which could be a completely new app, but I decided that it will be nice to make it available for free to those who has already purchased the app.

The new version will come with Facebook integration and a couple of very new features that I hope will make the app a lot more interesting for it owners.

The new version of Five Signs will initially appear for iPhone, but soon after that I am hoping to complete the Android version of it.

More on BlackBerry and Retrograde Mercury

2011-05-16T12:05:00.003+01:00

It was announced that RIM (the maker of BlackBerry) recalls 1000 of its new PlayBooks that were recently launched in the end of retro Mercury period. This is a good example of how things can go literally backwards when something important is done during a retrograde Mercury.

Winners and Losers: the Difference is in Timing

2011-05-07T15:24:00.001+01:00

Back in March there were rumours circulating that in the beginning of April Apple is going to announce something new, something exciting. I was doubtful about those rumours, because, in my experience, Apple is usually quite clever when it comes to timing.

The beginning of April wasn't a good time for a major advancement in business because Mercury was retrograde. You can read about the peculiarities of retrograde motion in the “About Retrograde Planets” article. Basically, projects started at this time either don't live long or prove to be irrelevant. They can often be half-baked, not very well thought through.

The time has shown that I was correct. Apple didn't make any announcements while Mercury was retrograde, except of the astonishing report of their financial results. That, however, was a thing of the past and so was appropriate for the symbolism of retrograde motion.

Only in the last days of April, when Mercury already went direct, did Apple make a couple of major steps: first the announcement of the white iPhone, then the introduction of the new super-powerful iMacs. Mercury was still quite slow, but there was an important conjunction of Mars and Jupiter in Aries on the 1st of May, very beneficial for an advancement in business.

This is an example of a winner, how they select the time for their steps. Now let’s have a look at the other side of the spectrum.

There we shall see RIM with their BlackBerry PlayBook. They managed to announce their new product on one of the worst possible days, on the 19th of April. Not only Mercury was still retrograde, it was very slow, and still slowing down. As if this wasn't enough, Mercury was also approaching the opposition of Saturn.

It wasn’t surprising then that the very first reviews of the PlayBook were very negative, with typical for retrograde Mercury “unfinished, unusable” refrain. Most shockingly, the tablet didn't have any means of communication, like email, calendar or contacts of its own. The proud owner would have to either use a webmail or connect the tablet to a BlackBerry device using a special piece of software.

If you are familiar with astrological symbolism, you will see how the opposition of Mercury, the symbol of communication, with Saturn, the symbol of difficulties and limitations, is highly appropriate for the PlayBook's lack of means for communication.

BlackBerry PlayBook was planned to be at least as successful as Apple’s iPad, but in reality it is a failure.

Does Apple use any astrological advice for their successful timing? Not necessarily.

It was noticed many times that those people who don't have a clear idea of what they want or whose plans are still far from being cut in stone tend to become very active when Mercury is retrograde, when everything in the world is moving and shifting. Somehow, they manage to intuitively select such periods for their major advancements.

It is quite possible then that the reverse is true as well, that those people who know very well what exactly they are doing are able to intuitively select for their advancement the best possible moments in time, or at least to avoid the worst periods. I believe that Apple and its successful development is a good example of this.

Lunar Diary

2011-05-04T16:18:00.003+01:00

Finally, I decided to create an application that I always wanted to have myself, instead of trying to guess what other people might find useful. Meet Lunar Diary.

The problem with lunar days is that their traditional descriptions are often quite contradicting, and still I find it important to take into account lunar days when planning something important.

I know that the 29th lunar day isn't good for anything, but the 21st day is good, especially for traveling. Quite often I notice that some event is very close to the topic of the lunar day when it happens, but then I forget about it, and the valuable knowledge gets lost.

Lunar Diary allows to quickly write a note and associate it with a specific lunar day, and store any number of such notes. This way, the user can accumulate the personal knowledge and experience of different lunar days and use it as a guide - the more valuable the more notes are collected.

Love Oracle

2010-08-11T22:10:00.003+01:00

Yet another experiment - I have created a new type (well, at leas for me) of an astrological iPhone app, Love Oracle. The idea and text belong to my friends from Media Cosmics while the technical implementation is mine.

The interesting thing about this app is that it has a very popular appearance and is very easy to use and yet it is based on some serious astrology. I can tell you that the partners' natal planet positions are calculated properly and then a certain non-trivial analysis is made, similar to what an experienced professional astrologer would do.

Works very well for me :) And we are planning to add more power and insight in the future versions. The price is symbolic - 99 cents - but might increase in the future.

Lunarium Mobile

2010-01-28T20:07:00.003Z

You might have noticed that I haven't updated Lunarium in any significant way for a while. That's because while I was rolling out New Lunarium, my other projects were patiently waiting, and finally the time came to give them an opportunity to be born.

Mostly those are iPhone/iPod touch projects. A couple of them were completed, both are based on numerology: Your Life Graph and Life Path. Although the names are alike, the apps are different. I am going to make a separate posting to explain why I appreciate numerology so much.

Also, I was able to complete my first Android app, that's iLuna for Android.

iLuna for BlackBerry is still in development and is a bit stuck. I am somewhat disappointed by BlackBerry platform, it is so... 1990-sh compared to iPhone and Android. But I hope to do something for that platform as well one day.

Nokia with its adoption of Qt begins to look interesting but Qt licensing isn't very exciting I'd say, at least for now.

I was planning to develop for Windows Mobile one day but it seems to be slowly dying now.

Palm Pre is an interesting platform but it doesn't allow native development, as far as I understand, and my astrological calculations just cannot be made in JavaScript.

I have another two already started iPhone projects to complete, and then I promised to port Hours to Android. Then I will put more effort into developing the website. Then I will do a round of updates for iPhone: iLuna 2.0, Hours 2.0...

If only I had more time... Keep in touch!

Void-of-Course Moon Misunderstanding

2009-12-16T20:59:00.003Z

I have already received three questions from different visitors of Lunarium with a similar content. They are asking: your lunar calendar shows that the Moon is void of course and at the same time it is in some sign of the Zodiac. That should be a mistake since when the Moon is void-of-course it isn't in any sign isn't it?

The answer is: NO, this isn't a mistake. The Moon is *always* in some sign of the Zodiac, there are no empty spaces between the signs. Consequently, the Moon cannot be in no sign.

It will take quite a bit of text and a few diagrams to explain what exactly void-of-course status is. So I will have to write an article on this topic, but that will take some time. In the meanwhile, let me try to explain the topic in as few words as possible. If you feel this explanation isn't comprehensible enough - wait for the article please.

First of all, the Zodiac is akin a ruler that helps us to specify where a planet is situated in the sky. I am going to explain this in more detail in the third lesson of the free astro school. In the same way as there are no empty spaces between the measurements of the ruler, there are no empty spaces between the signs of the Zodiac. Hence the Moon in her movement around the sky is always situated in one or another sign.

When the Moon is traveling across the sky, there are two types of event that can happen to it: it can make aspects to planets or it can enter another sign. The aspects are specific angular distances between heavenly bodies - say, 120 degrees is a trine. This is also a topic for a lesson in the free astro school.

The point is: some of the aspects will be the last before the Moon's entry into the next sign. In the interval of time between that last aspect and the Moon's entry into the next sign the Moon is considered to be void-of-course.

This might sound too technical, but void-of-course Moon was never intended to be used outside of Horary Astrology. I am happy that it became a million of times more popular than any of traditional astrologers could imagine, but ideally there should be no strange misconceptions regarding the basics of astrology. Please ask me questions if something is unclear to you - I am always happy to receive them (even if I don't reply for months, hehe).

Difficult times

2009-11-25T21:04:00.002Z

I am spending a lot of time and energy doing my new job, so I have only an hour or two in the evenings to work on Lunarium. Yes, and weekends of course. As a result, the work goes ahead very slowly, but it still moves.

I have completed rewriting of the article about planetary days and hours. I am gradually translating and uploading the descriptions of the lunar days, both by Vronsky and Globa. This last work goes exceptionally slowly, mainly thanks to Globa, his language and terminology. Please don't ask me what did he mean here or there: some of his advices are quite puzzling or ambiguous in the original, so all I can do is translate them as closely to the original as possible.

Translation goes so slowly that I allow myself to distract to the other topics. The next distraction is going to be the second lesson of the astro school, it will be devoted to the basic symbolism of planets.

Lunar Days etc. update

2009-11-08T19:19:00.003Z

Finally, I started implementing something I have planned many years ago: an extended description of the lunar days from different sources. I decided to concentrate on the two main sources for now but will add more whenever I find some additional information. This work will take some time, and time is the scarcest resource for me these days, so it will continue for a while. But you will be able to see the progress if you check the status of About the Lunar Days article.

However, this is not the only thing I am doing at the moment on Lunarium. I feel uncomfortable that the explanation of planetary hours and days that existed on the old site is missing now and I have started adding it again, gradually, updating and reviewing it bit by bit.

There is a constant lack of time however, with most of the work done over weekends and the rest of it done on the evenings after the whole day of work. I have also just signed a contract and started writing a book on some aspects of iPhone development. I am also doing a research into some aspects of the Traditional Astrology applied to the problems of the modern life... And I have a full time job that allows me to pay my bills.

So please be patient.

Google Goo...

2009-10-29T20:09:00.004Z

I was so happy when I thought that Google AppEngine team fixed their time zone implementation overnight - but I was wrong. Quite soon, time zones went awry again. Then returned back to normal, then got broken again. The truth is that this is an intermittent problem. I have recorded it in the AppEngine bug tracker and let's hope it will be really fixed one day.

But this is only one of the problems with which I am struggling at the moment, instead of filling Lunarium with interesting and useful content. Another major problem is that three Google Gadgets that I have created a few years ago stopped working. I have spent just too many evenings trying to find out what went wrong. Everything seemed to be right as before the migration of Lunarium to the new platform I made sure that the feeds used by the gadgets keep working.

Yesterday I have discovered that the problem was in the fact that the main URL of the site was changed from lunarium.co.uk to www.lunarium.co.uk. This change was forced by Google, and since the gadgets were registered with the first version of URL, another department of Google, named iGoogle, decided that the gadgets should not work anymore. Thank you, all the different Googles!

I was able to resubmit the gadgets with the new URL but they are now considered as completely new gadgets. Now, how do i tell all those 5000+ users of Lunar Informer who think that the gadget is broken that it is available and works, and under the same name, but is simply hidden somewhere in the bowels of Google.

I was able to find a special procedure which will hopefully allow me to join these two identical gadgets into one, but after I jump through a number of hoops, and after a week or so of waiting.

At the moment, if you are interested in my gadgets, the easiest way to get them is to install from this page: http://www.lunarium.co.uk/software/gadgets.jsp

Sorry for my irritated tone in this posting, there are a couple more Google-related problems that I will have to struggle with in the coming days instead of doing something much more sensible. Google is a powerful platform but these days I am fed up with its bugs, idiosyncrasies and developer-unfriendly interface.

Time Zones Work Fine - Bravo Google Guys!

2009-10-25T06:56:00.001Z

It looks like Google team has fixed the problem with the time zones overnight. If you couldn't get correct time - please check again, it should work now. Phew... What a relief!

Problems with time zones

2009-10-24T18:27:00.002+01:00

Unfortunately, I have just discovered a problem that prevents Lunarium from working properly for many locations right now. This problem is not mine or yours, it is a problem of the platform on which Lunarium is running - Google AppEngine. The guys haven't implemented most of the world's time zones yet.

I have reported the problem to the AppEngine's news group, let's see if anything will happen soon...

Lunar Calendar Details and Broken Gadgets

2009-10-23T20:42:00.004+01:00

Now I am having more constructive feedback, there are less and less emails saying that I have ruined my site by replacing a dark background with a light one...

The most important complaint is that Lunar Calendar now doesn't provide all the textual information that was provided by the old one. This is true, of course, but the information is coming and significantly more rich than it was before. My approach has two levels:

1. Right in the calendar, each bit of information will have a 'tooltip' - a brief textual explanation of what it is and what it means that appears when you hover your mouse over that bit of information. The information displayed in such tooltips is exactly same that was available in the old calendar.

Right now, I have implemented tooltips for the lunar days in the universal calendar. I believe this is a much more convenient solution than the old one. In the old calendar, you had to click on a link, say, for the same lunar day, and the link would bring you to the link of lunar days. Then you would have to navigate back to see another bit of information in the same or another day.

With the new calendar, you don't need to leave it, all the information will appear under your cursor as soon as you hover it on an event that is of interest to you.

2. The second level of information will be represented by articles devoted specifically to each element of the calendar: an article on lunar days, an article on phases and so on. In these articles, I will make available all the information that I have on the subject.

The second important complaint is that Google gadgets, of which I have three (Lunar Informer, Moon Sign Now and Planetary Hours), do not work anymore. That's really bad because I have put a lot of effort into making sure they continue to work. The problem is that in the years that passed since I have created those gadgets, Google Gadget API has changed significantly, and I have forgotten even those things that I did know about this API. So I will have to relearn everything from scratch and possibly rebuild my gadgets before they will work again. The only thing I can promise is that I will do that by all means.

A Rough Transition

2009-10-21T23:09:00.002+01:00

The New Lunarium has replaced the old site. I have already received a number of emails asking to bring back the old site as people prefer the old design. Well, design is a very personal thing and although the old colour scheme wasn't too bad, it couldn't be used for a truly extensive resource - like what Lunarium is going to become in close future.

Many complaints are very fair though as I wasn't able to complete many important details before launching the new site. Also, a few things that were supposed to work, like Lunar Informer gadget, got broken despite of my best efforts.

Of the important details that are missing the two that I am going to fix in the first place are:

1. In the universal lunar calendar, clicking on various symbols will display an appropriate information, like what this or that lunar day means etc.

2. On the planetary hours page, the current hour will be highlighted and the time format will be the one that the user has selected in the Settings.

I am going to work daily fixing various problems and adding more information to the pages - but let me get some rest first. It was really a challenge for me to get the core of the site ready and working, and I am somewhat exhausted at the moment. This is something I was planning and doing for years, and it is designed to work without any major maintenance for many years ahead.

If there is something you are terribly missing, please let me know. Bug reports will be highly appreciated. But please understand that there is no return to the old site: it would die anyway on the 1st of January 2010. This is why I am in such a haste with rolling out the new version.

If you want the New Lunarium to be better in one or another respect - please help me to make it better with your feedback. Thank you!

Only a Few Days Before Going Public

2009-10-17T13:51:00.002+01:00

The New Lunarium is not completed yet but the core functionality is ready and I am receiving quite a few emails asking when lunar calendar for the next 2010 year will become available.

So I decided that on the 20th of October, soon after the Moon will enter Sagittarius, I will make New Lunarium public (which means I will redirect the lunarium.co.uk domain to the new online content). Many pages will be left empty, but those are pages with textual content and the text will be added to them gradually after the new site launch.

There will be already the first lesson in the Free Astro School.

In the overall, New Lunarium will be much bigger than the old site and I will keep adding content to it and grow it ever after the 20th October launch.

New Solution for Selecting Locations

2009-09-30T15:51:00.003+01:00

As the date of New Lunarium becoming public approaches, I am concentrating on the most essential functionality, leaving cosmetic polishing for a later stage.

A number of volunteers has tested the solution for selecting locations on the Earth based on Google Maps, and most of them told me that although it is very flexible, too many steps are needed to select a location. Most people would prefer the old solution where a city can be selected from a drop-down box.

Well, the old solution was good for a limited number of locations only, while I am constantly receiving requests to add more and more cities. I wanted to find a solution that would involve as few steps as possible, like the old drop-down box, while at the same time provided the flexibility of Google Maps. And here is what I decided to do.

There will be two pages, one of them very simple, named Settings, the other one is Location, with Google Maps but redesigned to make it simpler.

The Settings page will offer two drop-down boxes: one for countries, the other one for cities. This is where the users will be able to select a location in the most convenient and simple way. Obviously, the selection of locations will be limited but I will try to have there all the locations that were ever requested by email by the visitors of the old Lunarium.

The Setting page will also allow to select the preferred date format.

Those who cannot find their location on the Settings page will have two options:

They can go to the Location page and select a location using the advanced Google Maps-based interface.
Or they can email the webmaster and request adding a new location to the drop-down list. With the New Lunarium, adding a new location will be much easier than it is now so I hope to be able to satisfy most of such requests, if not all of them.

This is the plan, and I am working on implementing it right now.

Runic Oracle is updated

2009-09-23T09:17:00.002+01:00

I have finally updated the iPhone / iPod touch version of my simple program for Runic divination named Runic Oracle. A small but annoying problem with animation was fixed and memory management was enhanced to eliminate occasional crashes. Still trying to submit the update to Apple - there seems to be some problem with their site - and then it will probably take a couple of weeks for them to approve the update. But everyone who has purchased the Runic Oracle for the massive price of $0.99 will get the updates automatically, as soon as they are approved.

The screenshots of the program can be seen here but they don't show you what I believe is the most attractive feature of this program - its animations. The texts are also quite good, I believe. I have written them many years ago for a UK Runic phone line.

Beginning the Astro School

2009-09-23T08:58:00.003+01:00

Thanks to the awfulness of Sky Broadband I was left without an Internet connection for two weeks - what a pain! I hope my new provider will be more professional.

I still did some work on New Lunarium though. The Moon Sign Calculator is completed - except of some smaller details which I am leaving here and there for the final polishing stage. And I have started to write the texts for the Free Astro School which is going to be a major feature of the New Lunarium. An introduction that relates about the author and how the idea of a free online astrology school has developed is already completed, and I am now writing the first lesson. If anybody will wish to preview the texts before they go public and tell me if they are comprehensible enough, that will be great.

I have put for myself a deadline of the 20th of October to make the New Lunarium public. Most of the work that is left is bits and pieces here and there, plus adding a number of descriptive texts for different features.

Planning the New Moon Sign Calculator

2009-09-03T20:47:00.005+01:00

Hey, it is already September! And New Lunarium still isn't open to the public! I need to think about priorities... There are many valuable pages that can be added without too much effort, but the main priority should be to open the new site - and then I can keep adding new pages forever.

To open the new site, I need to reproduce those features that already exist on the old Lunarium, and the last missing dynamic feature is the Moon Sign Calculator. And as with all the other features, I want to not just reproduce the existing functionality but to go one or two steps further.

With the Moon Sign Calculator, I want to add the following:

1) Warn is the Moon is in the very last or very first degrees of a sign, in which case the influence of the adjacent sign can be quite noticeable.

2) List any precise aspects that the Moon has with planets. They can modify the Moon's manifestations quite a bit. Also give brief descriptions of these aspects.

3) Give a list of celebrities and other people who have their Moon in the same degree of the same sign (by providing a link to an appropriate page of AstroDataBank at Astro.com). Yes, and display the Moon's degree.

After this is done, there will be still a substantial amount of work with textual contents - but that will go faster than programming.

The Moon, Its Phases, Influences And The Different Parts Of The Lunar Month

2009-08-31T12:47:00.003+01:00

I was asked a question by a visitor of Lunarium and I believe my answer can be useful for many people, as there is a lot of misunderstanding about the use of different terms, even in some books. So I decided to post it here.

The original question was: does the New Moon influence lasts to the First Quarter, First Quarter to the Full Moon etc - or just on that day?

And here is my answer.

As you probably know, the Moon's phases are technically the specific angles, measured in ecliptical longitude, between the Sun and the Moon as seen from the Earth. Say, New Moon is the moment when the angle between the Sun and the Moon is 0 degrees, Full Moon - 180 degrees, First Quarter - 90 degrees, measured from the Sun, Last Quarter - 270 degrees, measured from the Sun.

This means that there is a specific moment in time when the phase is precise and its influence is most pronounced. The influence can be noticed for some time before it culminates, as well as for some time after the culmination. How long this period of time is - a difficult question. It depends on many factors. If we are speaking about the influence on humans, some humans are more sensitive to the Moon than the others. Also when the Moon is in perigee, its influence will be stronger.

But if I have to give an estimate of the period of time when the influence of the phase is there, I would say 24 hours before and after the moment of the phase. From this point of view, one could say that two days after the New Moon we should not be saying that the New Moon is still in action.

However, there are certain considerations that are associated by the tradition not with the phases themselves but with the periods of time between the phases. Say, there is a waxing Moon (from the New Moon to the Full Moon) and a waning Moon (from the Full Moon to the New Moon) and there are things to be done when the Moon is waxing and other things to be done when the Moon is waning. Likewise, there are certain considerations associated with the first week (or the first quarter of the lunar month, the period between the New Moon and the First Quarter phase), the second week (the second quarter of the month, the period between the First Quarter and the Full Moon) and so on.

You have probably already noticed the ambiguity in terms: there is a lunar phase named First Quarter and there is the first quarter (or the first week) of the lunar month. They are different. The former is a specific moment in time (like 27 August 2009, 12:42 PM BST) while the latter is a period of time - from the moment of the New Moon phase to the moment of the First Quarter phase. There is also an ambiguity between the Last Quarter phase (the precise moment when the Moon is 270 degrees ahead of the Sun) and the last quarter (or the last week) of the lunar month, which is a period of time between the Last Quarter phase and the New Moon phase.

Certain considerations refer to the exact moment, the phase, like there is a higher probability of bleeding and complications during a surgery around the moment of the Full Moon. Other considerations refer to the periods of time, like such and such plants are recommended to plant during the first week of the lunar month. The bottom line is that when you hear or read a reference to the first quarter, you need to clarify whether that is the First Quarter of the Moon (the phase) or the first quarter of the lunar month (the week).

I hope this makes sense to you.

Moon and Surgery

2009-08-29T14:16:00.002+01:00

I was asked by a Lunarium visitor about a good day for a hip surgery. I've answered and then thought that my answer can be useful for other people too, so I post it here.

The traditional rules relating to surgery say that it is not recommended to do any surgery close to the Full Moon and that the Moon should not be in the sign of the Zodiac that rules the operated part of the body, in your case it's Sagittarius.

It is also reasonable to avoid New Moons as vital force is low at that time.

I am not sure about whether to prefer waning or waxing Moon for your surgery. In any case I'd say that this is a secondary consideration. The general idea is that if something is removed from the body, it should be done during the waning Moon, but if the surgery creates something good in the body, like restores a function, why not to do it on the waxing Moon.

Constellations and Gardening

2009-08-29T12:11:00.002+01:00

I was surprised to find out that the boundaries of the constellations as suggested by Steiner aren't widely known, even by those who should actually know them. I asked some biodynamic gardeners - silence, I asked some very knowledgeable fellow astrologers - they just keep recommending me someone else...

Finally, I had to order a couple of books by Maria Thun and I hope to find the information in them. For now, the Lunar Gardening Calendar displays the Moon's entries into the signs of the regular Sidereal Zodiac only.

Planet's Dignities and Current Positions

2009-08-29T11:44:00.002+01:00

I am ill these days, so my work on the New Lunarium has slowed down somewhat - but it hasn't stopped! And thanks to the fact that I am working more slowly, I was able to recollect some of my plans that I have almost forgotten.

Currently on the Planetary Hours page, I decided I need to display the planets' dignities for the selected day. I mean the essential dignities that depend on the planet's position in the Zodiac, using the points given by William Lilly. This will be a little bit tricky as fast planets can move during one day from term to term or even from sign to sign. I will probably need to provide a way to select a specific moment in time. And if so, I will be able to display the accidental dignities - those that depend on position in the houses and other transitory things.

The other pieces of information that I am going to display are the current planetary positions as well as current aspects, including parallels of declination and counterparallels.

Haven't decided yet where to put all these bits. Maybe I will add two more pages, one for the dignities, the other for current positions and aspects. Will try different variants and see what works best.

Starting the Planetary Hours Page

2009-08-24T19:51:00.004+01:00

As I spent last weekend learning to sail in the local water sports centre, Lunarium didn't progress much. Well, I need to have some rest from time to time.

Today I am beginning to work on the Planetary Hours page. It is going to be quite simple. At the top there will be a line of planetary days rulers, the one ruling the selected day will be highlighted. Below there will be a table of planetary hours for that day.

Initially, the current day will be displayed, but there's going to be a nice JavaScript calendar that will allow to select any day in a wide range of years... Let it be 1960 - 2020 to begin with.

There will be no textual descriptions, like those displayed right now. This is because, as I know from the visitors feedback, those people who are using planetary hours do not actually need my interpretations of what this or that hour might be good for. However, it will be possible to click a planet's symbol and see in a pop-up the planet's name and keywords - for the beginners.

All the remaining space on the page will be filled with links to planetary hours resources and maybe quotations.

There is going to be an article that will explain in great detail what planetary hours are, how they are calculated and how they can be used.

Two More iPhone Applications: Five Signs and Moon Sign

2009-08-20T19:58:00.003+01:00

Two more of my iPhone and iPod touch applications were just approved by Apple and appeared on the App Store. Moon Sign is a free application that does exactly what its title promises: calculates the Moon Sign for any date and time.

Five Signs goes a bit further. If you know your Sun Sign (well, everybody knows it although some people call it Star Sign) and you can easily find out your Moon Sign with the help of my programs, why don't you want to find out three other important facets of your personality - your Mercury Sign, Venus Sign and Mars Sign? This application costs $1.99.

These programs are a part of implementation of my strategy - give people just enough of astrology to keep them interested, not too much, not too little. I am aiming to be somewhere in the middle between the Sun Sign columns of magazines and newspapers on the one hand and computerized "whole chart interpretations" on the other hand. I believe that the former are not individual while the latter are hardly comprehensible, in many cases.

New Moon is Coming

2009-08-19T23:04:00.002+01:00

I used to work non-stop - every evening, and most of weekends. But before the New Moon I allow myself to relax and to do nothing essential, just to drift with desires and do whatever makes me most comfortable at the moment - whether it is a movie or a bottle of beer.

The coming New Moon is close to Regulus, the Royal Star. Since we say that New Moons (or, more precisely, the next day after a New Moon) are good for beginning, this New Moon will be appropriate for some really ambitious beginning... I have a couple of ideas what that could be, will decide tomorrow.

Moon's Nodal Transits Were Added

2009-08-18T21:24:00.003+01:00

Just added to the Lunar Gardening Calendar another bit of useful information - the Moon's transits through its North and South nodes. It is recommended not to plant anything on the days when they happen.

I understand that at the moment those few people who can see the new site are able to see only a huge number of symbols, dates and times without any comments. This is not how it will stay though - there will be sufficient explanation for each and every bit of information, with further references to the books, from which a more extended knowledge can be gained.

The plan is, first, to complete the computational core of the New Lunarium. Most of this is already done. Just to add moonset/moonrise times to the Gardening Calendars, display planetary hours and retrograde planets, calculate Moon Sign - that's it. I hope to complete all this by the end of the next week.

The next step will be to add the text, and a lot of it. Then I will need to "ajaxify" the site to make its interface fluent and natural.

Finally, there will be a number of bits and pieces behind the scenes that will allow me to maintain Lunarium without much effort.

Hmm... Clearly, I can't complete all this by the end of August, unfortunately. But since the most difficult part is already done, the completion of the New Lunarium isn't too far. Autumnal Equinox? Maybe.

Ode to Microsoft and IE6

2009-08-17T21:15:00.002+01:00

I am spending whopping amounts of time trying to make the New Lunarium looking not too bad and retaining some degree of usability in just one browser - Internet Explorer 6. I could use this time for something much more valuable, indeed! But statistics show that a quarter of Lunarium's visitors are still using this buggy piece of software.

Every other browser shows everything properly, including IE7 and IE8. But no, a quarter of the web users stick to the old rusty piece of rubbish. I have a temptation to hang a big red sign at the entrance to Lunarium: please get rid of IE6! Use just any major browser but not IE6!

Thank you, Microsoft, for inundating the world with your awful product!

Free Astro School on New Lunarium

2009-08-17T12:26:00.002+01:00

I decided to create a free astrology school on the new version of Lunarium. Already created a few empty pages for it and will be filling them with content as soon as I have a little bit of time, and a proper mood.

I already have a well-structured system of online lessons - dozens of them - as well as a "Teach Yourself Astrology" book, published originally in 2001 and still in print. However, all this is not in English... Besides, it was written several years ago, I will probably write many things anew rather than simply translate them. Also the computing power of New Lunarium will allow me to add many interesting features that were not possible before.

As soon as I have a few pages ready, I will be showing them to those who will volunteer to be a reviewer. New Lunarium is currently hosted at a temporary location, so to be able to see it you will have to email to master at lunarium dot co dot uk.

Planetary Aspects in Lunar Gardening Calendar

2009-08-16T22:51:00.003+01:00

Phew... It was a long, long working day (this is how I am spending my Sundays), but the Lunar Gardening Calendar is now able to display lunar and planetary aspects for each day of each year from 2001 to 2020 - and for each location too!

I haven't uploaded the latest code yet as there is a minor bug - some aspects are displayed twice - but will do that tomorrow, as soon as the bug is caught.

After this, I will add moonrises/moonsets and Moon's transits through its Nodes. Then I will consider the Gardening Calendar completed and start working on Planetary Hours feature.

In the completed version of New Lunarium, everything will be described and explained - like why lunar aspects or the time of moonrise are important in gardening - but for now I am completing the core functionality, leaving explanations and other texts for a later stage.

Steiner's Irregular Constellations

2009-08-15T20:13:00.002+01:00

I thought I have this information somewhere, but alas, a search in the books as well as googling the web produced no result. I couldn't find the boundaries of constellations as defined by Rudolf Steiner in 1920's.

I will continue the search, but for now will implement only the regular Sidereal Zodiac, as advocated by Nick Kollerstrom. However, all the programmatic support for Steiner's constellations is already there, and I will add that option to the Gardening Calendar as soon as I have the information on the boundaries.

Lunar Gardening Calendar - which exactly?

2009-08-14T21:33:00.003+01:00

The next feature of the New Lunarium that will be added to the site is the Lunar Gardening Calendar, i.e. the calendar for those who is using the knowledge of the Lunar Lore in their gardening.

However, there are two significantly different approaches to Lunar Gardening, both having their proponents and convincing references to literature. These approaches are:

1. American.

2. European.

I have to admit that the labels for the approaches are quite arbitrarily selected by myself. There are certainly many followers of the European approach in different parts of the world, and the American approach, due to its simplicity, is known to some degree to most students of astrology. But I had to name these two approaches somehow, and in a few moments you will understand why I have selected exactly these labels.

American Approach

This approach is best of all represented by Llewellyn's Moon Sign Book. Its basic ideas are: "plant annuals producing their yield above the ground" when the Moon is waxing (increasing in light), plant root plants, potatoes, bulbs etc., as well as trees and shrubs, after the Full Moon, cultivate, pull weeds before the New Moon. The Signs of the Zodiac are considered from the point of view of their fertility. For example, Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces are very fruitful while Aries, Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Leo, Aquarius are all barren. In this approach, the usual Tropical Zodiac is used, and this is important, because the other approach is based on the Sidereal Zodiac.

European Approach

This approach is based on the ideas of Rudolf Steiner and is used in the Biodynamic Farming. The main distinguishing feature of it is that this approach uses not Tropical Zodiac, and, in the way how it was taught by Steiner, even not the Sidereal Zodiac, but the irregular constellations. Another important idea of this approach is that Earth constellations are good for planting potatoes and root vegetables, Water constellations are good for leaves, Air constellations - for flowers and Fire constellations - for seeds and fruits. A number of other astronomical phenomena are also considered in this approach. Modern researcher into this method Nick Kollerstrom argues that instead of the irregular and somewhat arbitrary system of constellations, a regular Sidereal Zodiac should be used, and I find his arguments convincing.

Now, the question is: which system to use for the Lunar Gardening Calendar on Lunarium?

After some thinking, I decided to use the European system. This is because Sidereal lunar calendars aren't widely available online. Those who prefers to use the American approach can use the Universal calendar, which is already up and running, as it contains all the information that is needed for this approach. I will only add a systematic description of the ideas of this approach.

The next question is whether to use regular signs or irregular constellations. I will try to implement both, and to make it very easy to switch between the two options. Let's see how I will manage all this, I am going to complete the Lunar Gardening Calendar in the next few days.

The New Lunar Calendar is truly universal!

2009-08-05T22:27:00.002+01:00

Finally, I have implemented the feature that was long awaited by many people. It is now possible to select just any location on the Earth, and to have Lunar Calendar calculated precisely for that location. Also, it can now be calculated for any month of any year from 1960 to 2020. I am now inviting volunteer testers to play with the new calendar.

The next step will be the Gardening Calendar that will be universal in the same way and that will provide the information used by biodynamic gardeners.

After that, the new Planetarium will offer an extended range of information about planetary days, hours, retrograde planets and a few other interesting things.

How to define whether the eclipse is important for you personally

2009-07-23T20:58:00.009+01:00

Eclipses produce a shake-up in the aura of our planet. The day of the eclipse can be disturbing for our health and emotional state. These are more or less general things. However, for some people an eclipse can produce a powerful impulse which can dramatically change the direction of their life, their relationships, position in the society and so on. It was noticed that important changes can start a few months before the eclipse (they say that the eclipse "throws shadow in front of it") and continue after it for years.

Some of the changes provoked or stimulated by the eclipse can be disturbing, even destructive. But such a shake-up can also help us to see new horizons, to understand something, it can awake us from lethargy and give an outlet to our creativity.

Using some simple astrological rules, it is possible to conjecture whether the coming eclipse will touch our life, and if it will then how strongly and what kind of changes might be expected - disruptive or creative.

I will put together some of these rules, beginning from the simplest but giving only a general idea, continuing with the more specific but requiring some knowledge and mental effort.

The reader is expected to have some basic knowledge of horoscopic astrology. You will need at least to have your natal chart, be able to find planets in it and see in which degree they are situated. You can create your natal chart for free at the Astro.com website.

1. How many of your planets have aspects to the degree of the eclipse?

The more aspects there are and the more precise they are, the more important will be the given eclipse for the owner of the chart.

To find out the number of aspects, you need to know:

1. In which degree of the Zodiac will take place (or has taken place) the eclipse. For example, the recent total solar eclipse's degree was in the 30th degree of Cancer while the preceding lunar eclipse took place in the 16th degree of Capricorn.

2. In which degrees of the Zodiac the planets (and other important points like Ascendant or MC) are located in your chart.

Let's take an example. In the chart of Steve Jobs (that can be found in the AstroDatabank collection on Astro.com website) the main elements have the following positions (I am rounding the positions; say, if some planet is located in 5 degrees 45 minutes of a sign, I will say that it is in the 6th degree):

Sun: 6 Pisces

Moon: 8 Aries

Mercury: 15 Aquarius

Venus: 22 Capricorn

Mars: 30 Aries

Jupiter: 21 Cancer

Saturn: 22 Scorpio

Uranus: 25 Cancer

Neptune: 29 Libra

Pluto: 26 Leo

Mean North Node: 3 Capricorn

Ascendent: 23 Virgo

MC: 22 Gemini

The next step is to find out how many planets in the natal chart are close by degree to the degree of the eclipse (without considering their sign, for now). What does close mean? Well, let's say within three degrees from it.

The degree of the eclipse is 30. If we subtract 3 from 30 we'll get 27. If we add 3 to 33 we'll get 33 but since every Sign of the Zodiac has only 30 degrees, 33 will mean the 3rd degree of the next sign. In other words, we'll be looking for planets (or other elements) located in either first three degrees of any sign, or in the last four degrees. If a planet will be located exactly in the 30th degree, the degree of the eclipse, we'll pay it a special attention as the eclipse will touch it very precisely.

In the chart of Steve Jobs, Mars is in the 30th degree, very important, but also Neptune is in the 29th degree.

We can suggest then that the recent eclipse does play an important role in the life of Steve Jobs (because the aspect with Mars is so precise) but it will show itself (or it is already showing itself) in a relatively narrow area of his life, as it touches only two planets.

Now let's imagine that some eclipse has happened in the 22nd degree of any sign. It would touch six elements in the chart of Steve Jobs, three of them precisely. It would be logical to suggest then that such an eclipse would have a very strong influence and that influence would show itself in many areas of life.

We have found out that the degree of the eclipse does actually make some aspects to the natal chart that we are studying. The next question is: what is the nature of the aspects?

2. What is the nature of the aspects?

To keep it simple, sextiles (60 degrees) and trines (120 degrees) might stimulate some positive developments in life. Sextiles are often associated with an opportunity to choose one of a few existing opportunities while trines can show that some new direction is appearing in one's life.

All the other aspects, when powered by an eclipse, most probably will indicate various disturbances - oppositions (180 degrees) and squares (90 degrees) are especially so. Square is often an open conflict or a problem that requires active efforts while opposition creates a lot of stress and strain without giving an outlet.

Conjunction (0 degrees) can be both stimulating and disturbing depending on the circumstances of the planet involved, but we won't go there in this post (it was supposed to be brief).

3. What is the nature of the planets?

In many cases the nature of the planets touched by the eclipse will allow to understand which areas of life will be disturbed or stimulated. I mean the general associations of planets in astrology like Mars = work, conflict, surgery, Venus = relationships, love, beauty and so on.

4. Which houses are involved?

Have a look in which houses are the planets touched by the eclipse situated. Again, use the known astrological associations like 2nd house = money, 6th house = work/health and so on.

New Lunarium is Taking Shape

2009-07-19T22:26:00.002+01:00

I made completing the new version of Lunarium a priority and hope to complete it by the end of August.

The first "bare bones" version of the New Lunarium will reproduce everything available on the old version but on a completely different level. These are the main differences between the Old Lunarium and the emerging New Lunarium:

1. You will not need to request adding a new city to the list of locations. This ancient procedure is replaced with a completely different solution. There will be a map (actually a Google Map) where you will be able to select just any place on the Earth, click on it, give it a name, select a time zone and confirm your selection. That's it - Lunarium will use the specified location for the Lunar Calendar, for the Planetary Hours and everywhere else where the information will be location-specific.

2. There will be significantly more information available. The Old Lunarium displays information about lunar phases, days, signs and void-of-course periods. The New Lunarium will add to this eclipses, apsides (apogees and perigees), lunar stations (mansions) and retrograde periods of personal planets.

3. It will be possible to calculate lunar calendar and all the other information not just for a few years but for any year from 1960 to 2020. I can easily expand this period to, say, 1900 - 2100 if needed.

4. It will be possible to calculate planetary hours for any day within the above mentioned range of years. Additionally, planetary dignities will be displayed for the specified moment of time.

5. The New Lunarium will have a new, more contemporary design and it will be substantially "ajaxified", so it will be more responsive and easier to use. It is created on a very new technological platform - Java version of Google App Engine - and so should be very efficient and reliable.

6. I was convinced by a biodynamic gardener on Twitter that a proper gardening calendar using Siderial Zodiac is very much needed for the community, so although I planned it for a later update, now I decided that the Lunar Gardening Calendar (calculated according to the rules of biodynamic gardening) will be a part of the initial release of the New Lunarium.

After the initial release I am planning to regularly add new content to Lunarium. The first candidates for such additions are:

Free School of Astrology.
Lunar Calendar of Health.
New articles and interactive programs.

You are welcome to follow my work on the New Lunarium at http://twitter.com/NewLunarium

Still moving...

2009-05-18T22:58:00.004+01:00

Quite a few years after the last post... The time is running so quickly. The new Lunarium is still in works - now I just must to make it ready by the end of the year, or the whole system will be broken. And I do have some good ideas of how to implement it.

For many people it became a shock that Jonas Method Calculator was first renamed to Lunar Conception Calculator and then became paid. Well, both steps have a good reason. First of all, I was contacted by some lawyers who informed me that Jonas Method is a trade mark reserved by someone else, so I had to drop it.

Around the same time, I have purchased a license for Swiss Ephemeris which allowed me to do the necessary astronomical calculations with the highest possible precision and to overcome the shortcomings of the old calculator (which, because of its low precision algorithm, went ballistic for the births close to the New Moon).

Around the same time I have moved the conception calculator to the new expensive hosting that allowed me to use the new libraries.

Also, I was approached by the people who were eager to continue the research into the findings of Dr. Jonas from where he left it.

Also, I felt like I am fed up doing an important stuff during evenings and weekends while earning my bread doing some stupid stuff during all the most creative and productive time of the week.

Yet another thought was: hey people, if this work is important for you and you do have a few pennies to pay for your bread, so why don't you pay a little bit for a piece of work which might be more important for you than a piece of bread?

This is how we came to making the calculation a paid service. It is still in the state of rectification and upgrade and attracting associates in different parts of the world but should be made up and running soon!

Lunarium 2.0 is coming...

2007-08-24T20:52:00.000+01:00

I have to apologize for not answering the visitors' feedback in a timely manner, but the truth is that I am working on a new, rebuilt from scratch, version of Lunarium. It uses super-precise , state-of-the-art, Swiss Ephemeris for its calculations, and in many ways it will respond the requests that I was receiving from you.

For example, it will be much easier to add another city to Lunarium, and the choice of available cities will be much wider.

It will be possible to build Lunar Calendar for any month, for any day at list for the period of 1900 - 2010.

Jonas method will receive another, precise and powerful engine, and I will publish all the information I possess about this method.

Finally, the new Java technology I am using for Lunarium 2.0 will prevent those errors in timing that unfortunately appear from time to time in the current version of Lunarium.

Thanks for your patience!

Lunarium: Plans for the Future

2007-05-06T12:24:00.000+01:00

My work on the new calculation engine goes well, but there are still things to do. As the engine will become available, the following enhancements are planned at Lunarium:

1. Jonas Method calculations will be still more precise and they will work well no matter when the person was born (right now, the calculator doesn't work for thos born close to New Moon).
2. It will be very easy to add any new location to the list of the cities at Lunarium, you will be able to do that yourself.
3. You will be able to get lunar calendar for any month in the wide range of years, not just for 2006 - 2008. I think the range 1900 - 2020 will be available.

Planetary Hours Gadget

2007-05-06T12:00:00.000+01:00

I have been experimenting with Google Gadgets recently. The idea was to make the most popular content from Lunarium easily available for everyone. Just now I have added the third gadget, Planetary Hours, and I really like it.

This gadget uses Google Maps API to set its location, which means that you can set it to just any village using, say, its post code. Blantyre where I live is a small place, but you can see at the Gadgets page how I have planetary hours calculated for it.

I find that Google Gadgets work best on the personalized Google search page (http://google.com/ig), and I find this page very, very convenient. But you can also put them onto any page of your website if you wish, as Gadgets page demonstrates.

Firdaria Project

2007-03-04T03:30:00.000Z

I have started a new project, Firdaria.com. It is only a beginning, but the "heart" of the project. the Firdar Calculator, is already online and working.

In case you don't know what is it, Firdaria is an astrological method of prediction, an important tool in the Medieval astrologer's toolbox. I find it very informative and important.

The next step will be adding examples and general interpretations. And then the ultimate goal is to create an intellectual individual Firdar interpreter that will take the individual birth data and produce a very much individualized description of Firdaria.

What is Globa?

2006-12-31T10:32:00.000Z

Here is an email that I have received one day:

***

I wanted to ask the following question: 

"However, for Globa this is a
'Satanic' day, with all the ensuing consequences..."

What is GLOBA ? I did a Google Search but NOTHING came out of it nor did I find anything about Globa in your articles.

***

Pavel Globa is one of the most widely known (in Russia) Russian astrologers. He was one of those very few first astrologers who began to popularize serious astrology even before the collapse of the Soviet system. And he became extremely popular after the collapse. Now, if you ask any Russian, whom of astrologers do they know, if any, they will certainly mention Globa, and in most cases only him.

Globa states that his astrology system is based on Avesta. Well, there are not so many people who actually know Avesta, so we have to believe here. What is for sure is that his system is highly unusual and eclectic. It has a lot of methods and approaches which I didn't see anywhere else, or didn't see in this combination.

To begin with, they draw their chart in clockwise direction, not counter-clockwise as most other astrologers do. They use on a regular basis a number of fictional planets, such as 'Black Moon', 'White Moon', Proserpina etc. They use parses, calculate Almutens and many other factors in a way similar to Medieval astrology. They have some magical rituals.

What I don't like about this school is their blackish, satanic dimension. But exactly this attracts to it many other people. Their interpretations speak about sins and punishments, they might characterise you as a Grand Master of the Universe or a hopeless victim just on the basis of, say, Black Moon or some other fictional point placed in a particular way. In short, this is not my kind of astrology.

So why did I use the Globa's interpretations of Lunar Days? Simply because there are very few sources of information on them, and I wanted to make my information as comprehensive as possible.

Recent Site Reorganization and Further Plans

2006-07-22T11:43:00.000+01:00

Lunarium is still quite young, but it became apparent that its design came to some sort of limit: it was difficult to find where to put any new content. So I decided to reorganize it and also to make it more user-friendly.

First of all, there is a new Home Page. My guess is that many of the first-time visitors of Lunarium were frightened by the view of seemingly complicated monthly Lunar Calendar. Now they will see an easy description of the current phase of the Moon, a friendly explanation of what Lunarium is and a log of the most recent changes/additions. As for the monthly Lunar Calendar, it was moved to its own page.

Also, the Articles page was added. It has a link to a single article right now, "On the Nature of Retrograde Planets", and this article is still being written, but this is where I will be able to add many new materials which I am going to make available at Lunarium with time. The next one will be about some new details about the Jonas method which I have found recently.

The tables of the most important dates for the retrograde motion of the personal planets were added to the Planetary Calendar page. Their full explanation will be given in the article referenced above.

A number of invisible, but important changes were made to the inner engine of Lunarium. Most importantly, the code for planetary hours calculations was completely rewritten and thoroughly tested, so now it should work well for all the cities and years. The new American Daylight Saving Time Schedule was added. Finally, Indian cities can be worked with now - it wasn't possible before since Indian Standard Time has not an integer number of hours.

Now I shall concentrate on adding more interesting content, including some interactive programs, to the Articles page.

The new version of the Planetary Calendar

2006-06-29T11:58:00.000+01:00

I have to admit that the previous version of the Planetary Calendar had some errors in it, so I had to rewrite the code for that page from scratch.

Additionally, I have finally completed the feature which was planned long ago: a kind of time table which displays all the planetary hours for two planetary days: the current and the next ones.

Also there is an article which explains what planetary hours are and how they are calculated.

Kuala Lumpur, Bath, Kingston and more

2006-06-11T11:49:00.000+01:00

A number of cities were added: Kuala Lumpur, Bath, Detroit MI, Lansing MI, Flint MI, Minneapolis MN and Kingston.

I was also asked to add Mumbai and Indian Standard Time which is 5:30 plus to Greenwich. But unfortunately, the old software which supports the work of Lunarium and which was created by myself years ago can work with integer time zones only. So it could take 5 or 6 hours, but not 5:30. Rewriting all the code is not possible right now, however, in a few months time I am planning to recreate Lunarium on a different platform (Java, or perhaps ASP.NET, didn't decide yet). In the new version, Indian Standard Time and the cities which use it will present by all means.

Also one of the visitors asked why Daylight Saving Time is not considered in the Moon Sign Calculator. Which is a fair observation, and such an option was added today.

On Cutting Hair with the Moon

2006-05-24T08:41:00.000+01:00

This is a popular search which brings people to Lunarium, but I couldn't figure out yet where to put this information, so for the moment I will provide a brief answer right here. The question is:
how to use the information about the Moon to decide when to cut hair?

Of course you know that to get the information about the Moon you can use either the Online Lunar Calendar or its Downloadable Version.

As a matter of fact, I do use this information myself to decide when to cut hair. A few years ago I have noticed that my hair is becoming thinner, and the perspective to get a bald spot didn't seem too attractive to me. Since then I am getting my hair cut on the growing (waxing) Moon only, and the situation has improved considerably.

The main idea here is that you want your hair to grow better, cut them when the Moon is increasing in light - i.e. between the New Moon and the Full Moon. Some people advise to cut hair at the Full Moon, but I have noticed, and then read somewhere, that when you do so, your hair will grow quickly but will also become thinner, weaker. I would say that the best time to cut hair if you want it (them?) to be strong and grow better is between the First Quarter and the Full Moon, closer to the First Quarter.

Some people who have really strong hair and want them to grow slower (to retain the haircut? or there is also an opinion that when hair grows slower, it becomes thicker) or to remove hair on the parts of the body where they do not want them, can make use of the waning (decreasing) Moon, i.e. the period after the Full Moon and before the New Moon. I would suggest that the best period for epilation is two or three days before the New Moon.

There can be some other considerations also, but I didn't try to use them in practice, so they are mere theoretical. The Signs of the Zodiac where the Moon is at the moment can be taken into account. For gardening purposes, there are fruitful signs (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces) - perhaps they will be good for hair growing also? The signs of benefic planets - Taurus, Libra, Sagittarius - should be also good for growing. On the other hand, the signs of Mercury (Gemini, Virgo) as also Aries, Aquarius, perhaps Leo and maybe Capricorn are often considered fruitless so may be better used for epilation.

Downloadable Lunar Calendar and Windows XP Issue

2006-05-23T12:51:00.000+01:00

One of the consequences of those legal wars between Microsoft and Sun Microsystems is that Windows XP does not have Java support "out-of-the-box". This deficiency is easy to fix: Java Runtime Environment (JRE) can be downloaded for free from Java.Sun.com website (choose JRE 5.0), the latest version "weights" around 16 Mb, and it will make your computer Java-enabled.

Now, if you don't have a JRE installed, the following problem will show itself on Windows XP computers.

When you try to download the luca.jar file from the Downloads Page, Windows XP automatically renames it to luca.zip, and when you double-click it, as advised, it just shows you the contents of the package - nothing of interest for you.

If you want to run this program, remove the luca.zip file, download and install the JRE and then download another copy of Lunar Calendar. This should work well.

For the future, I will have to avoid creating Java programs despite of all their benefits.

Downloadable Lunar Calendar

2006-05-18T00:17:00.000+01:00

I have just uploaded a new program - a downloadable version of Lunar Calendar. It provides a verbose description of a day's situation and will be suitable for those who find the table version of Lunar Calendar on the Home page too terse.

I have tested the program on my computers, it works fine, but it takes the time zone and DST offset from the computer on which it runs, and if you could test the program in your time zone and see if its output is the same as in the online version (it should be) - that would be great.

The program is available on the Downloads page, and it will work on just any computer - Windows, Mac OS, doesn't matter - as soon as it has Java installed.

More Cities

2006-05-17T17:10:00.000+01:00

Bucharest, Fresno CA and Tomsk were added to the list of the cities.

Date Format Issue

2006-05-15T19:00:00.000+01:00

It is already the second person who has reported that there is something wrong with Lunarium: its calculators do not accept a date bigger than 12th.

Well, I do appreciate that many of the visitors are coming from the USA where month in a date traditionally goes first, but since this is a British site, I decided to use the date format which I am used to, where the day goes first. And I have clearly marked the fields : 'Day' or 'Month' in order to avoid misunderstanding.

Naturally, the field marked 'Month' cannot accept anything bigger than 12. Please be attentive.

How many hours there are in a day of Venus?

2006-05-12T22:18:00.000+01:00

My tracking software told me that several people came to Lunarium with a query like this. Since there is no direct answer to this question on the pages of Lunarium at the moment, why can't I give the answer right here, in the blog?

To begin with, every planetary day continues from one sunrise to the next sunrise. This means that every planetary day has in it more or less the same amount of time. Although many of us would wish that Venus day was longer :), the reality of life isn't that good.

Every planetary day is composed of exactly 24 planetary hours. But planetary hours are different from what we used to think of as hours. If you take the timespan between a sunrise and the consequent sunset, it will be different on different days, right? In the summer, this timespan will be longer than 12 hours, it will be the longest around the 22nd of June. In winter, especially around the 23rd of December this daylight timespan will be much shorter.

Now, if you divide this timespan by 12, you will get the length of a 'day hour'. It will be longer than 60 minutes in the summer and shorter than 60 minutes in winter.

You can also take the timespan from a sunset to the consequent sunrise and divide it by 12 - you'll get the length of a 'night hour' which will be longer in winter and shorter in summer. So every planetary day consists of 12 planetary 'day hours' and 12 planetary 'night hours', and the summary length of it is close to (but not exactly) 24 civil (i.e. normal, non-planetary) hours.

Hope this helps...

On the Planetary Calendar

2006-05-11T23:56:00.000+01:00

A couple of visitors asked me why don't I display more planetary hours - say, for a few coming days - so that they could plan their activities properly. Frankly speaking, this is exactly what I am going to do. Also, I am going to extend the article which can be found at the Planetary Calendar page and explain in details how planetary hours are calculated.

However, at the moment I am completing my dissertation and passing the final exams of an MSc programme - you can imagine how busy I am. By the end of May all these distractions should be over and I will resume my work on Lunarium.

One more thing about planetary hours. Some visitors (actually, very few) report a problem when viewing planetary hours. In fact, they see some wrong planetary hour displayed. This is easy to check: the first hour after the sunrise is ruled by the same planet which rules that week day. On Mondays the first hour after the sunrise is ruled by the Moon, on Tuesdays - by Mars, on Wednesdays - by Mercury, on Thursdays - by Jupiter, on Fridays - by Venus, on Saturdays - by Saturn and on Sundays - by the Sun. Well, this "first hour" is usually not exactly 60 minutes, but that will be explained later. Let it be "approximately one hour" for now.

To return to the problem, some visitors check the Planetary Calendar in the morning, soon after the sunrise, say on Friday, but instead of Venus they see some other planet. I was never able to reproduce this problem on any of my computers. So I think this is a trick of those rare visitors' browsers.

I hope that someone who will notice such an anomaly will want to communicate with me and to work on the problem from both ends, so to say.

On Adding Cities

2006-05-10T19:38:00.000+01:00

I do add new cities to the list at the Lunarium, but currently adding a city takes some time, so I usually don't do that immediately. Usually I am waiting until something like four or five requests come and then add four or five cities all together - when I have time.

The most recently added cities are Portland, Sarajevo, Springfield and Cincinnati.

Language Issues

2006-05-10T15:46:00.000+01:00

As you have definitely noticed, I am not a native English speaker. So my English is comprehensible, but not always correct. With the help of my friends, I am trying to make the texts at Lunarium better. Some of them were already thoroughly edited, others are still in a rather raw form. For example, a half of the texts for the Your Moon Sign feature (those for Moon in Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo and Virgo) were already edited, while others weren't.

If you find some text which is incomprehensible to you, please let me know and I will try to explain that in a different way. Alternatively, you might suggest a better version of this or that phrase - myself and also all the visitors of Lunarium will be grateful to you.

Welcome to Lunarium Blog

2006-05-10T14:42:00.000+01:00

I decided to create this blog to enable communication with the visitors of the Lunarium.co.uk website. I will use it to explain what is being done at the Lunarium, what is planned, and if there are any questions or problems, this blog should give me an opportunity to answer them.
Being under severe workload at the moment, I am unfortunately unable to create any means of communication which would be more integral for the Lunarium. But they might appear over time.